Favorites, elf and winners!

 Hello!

"I apologize for my delay in getting back to you" is the beginning of every email I've sent lately.

And I really do apologize.  If I could hire someone to do ONE thing for me it would be to respond to emails, Instagram comments, and Facebook inquiries.  I do my best to keep up but dang.  It overwhelms me.  I promise that it's not because I'm lazy or choose to ignore emails...there are just a lot of them.

First off...the winner of the Less Ordinary Designs giveaway is YOU. :) Contact me to claim your prize! :)

This weekend I spent the whole time cooking and baking.  We had two big celebrations this weekend and one was for my sister in laws birthday.  

For her birthday I made chocolate cake (using this recipe but subbing in a devils food cake mix), chocolate ganache (recipe from Martha) and covered in the BEST frosting EVER...toasted marshmallow!

You should make some and eat it from the bowl with a spoon or cover some cake with it.

Toasted Marshmallow Frosting

1 1/3 cups margarine room temp
7 oz tub marshmallow cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 -2 teaspoons milk
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar

Blend together margarine and marshmallow until smooth.  Add extracts.  Add sugar slowly and blend as you add.  If needed add milk a bit at a time.  (recipe via food.com

And our elf, Porkchop has been up to good this year...so far.  Baking cookies...

 Having a movie night...

 Shaving...

 Doing fly bys...

 Tire swinging...

 Recovering from too much candy...

 Zip-lining...

 And practicing his off season high wire act. :) The boys are having a great time with him. 

And my favorite boys were in the local parade.  Moses insisted on dressing like Santa and he got tons of compliments on his outfit. :)

Hope your season is LOVELY and stress free!  Go have some coffee and bake something! :)

xo